The Great Britain racer was given the news by doctors that he won’t be able to race this season.

Sheffield Tigers' Josh Bates

His broken vertebrae is still causing complications after sustaining the injury while sledging in the snow on the eve of the campaign.

Bates, 22, said: “I’m obviously gutted. I’ve had to take doctors advice on this because it’s my back. There’s more to life than just speedway. I’ve got to think about myself outside of the sport as well and the rest of my life.

“I hope everybody just appreciates that I need to take time out, taking it slowly. I can’t make it heal any faster.

“The docs have said I can go swimming and a little bit of gym work. I’m doing exercises every morning but it’s a real hard process at the minute and hard to watch the season going on and not racing.

“Obviously it’s hugely frustrating. I’m sat at home every day watching all the updates thinking I should be doing this.”

The Barnsley battler has been travelling to meetings with best buddy Ty Proctor and is clearly gutted at having to watch from the sidelines. He also admits that things are so bad he’s having to watch Jeremy Kyle on TV!

He added: “Ty Proctor and I did nine hours a week in the gym pre-season and look how well Ty is doing now because he’s been training hard but unfortunately I broke my back, it’s very cruel.

“I’m so bored at home. I spend every day watching Jeremy Kyle, that’s how bad things are. I’m walking my new dog two hours every day to keep myself amused, my life really isn’t exciting.

“As for the injury, it’s just one of those things, it’s like you could walk out in front of a bus at anytime. Things happen, it is what it is.”

Tigers are likely to be without skipper Kyle Howarth for their back-to-back Cup matches with Scunthorpe this week.

They face the Scorpions at Owlerton tomorrow with the return on Friday and club bosses are looking at their options.